why Israel and why not Palestine

Yuval, when I accept the fact that Palestinians want to feel as a people I do not see any right that follows from that. In particular no right to have a country or even to pick the territory. If, as you describe, they choose to define themselves as the people who want to live on Israeli terrority, this is not much of a definition but a declaration of war on their part.

Luckily the Turks here make no such demands. If given a choice between favouring arabs or loyalty to Germany they would go for Germany. As for anybody, including arabs, claiming territory based on contracts, the bible, ethnicity or whatever, I do not consider this legitimate. This is like claiming the moon based on a piece of paper when everyone knows nobody can live there. Israel as jewish state belongs to the jews (and others) living there) for but one reason: It is the jewish people who cultivated the place to high prosperity and civilization, set up a democracy starting from nothing and they demonstrated they can defend it.

So by making the place better they made it theirs. Israel is a reality, not god-given, but made out of hard work. Every replacement would degrade it to what it was before, desert. So when you say it is your home, that is the correct argument, you and the people before your made it your own. Looking at the two palestine territories one can find arguments for the Palestinians to have space to launch rockets, I guess a couple of square meters of wasteland would do. In order to broadcast anti-semitic material they also do not need a state, a website would do. You talk about your father growing up in Frankfurt. I cannot imagine what it feels like when your neighbours turn against you in situation of distress. Rather than helping or protecting they try to kill you. I very much see Israel as a state in this situation.

What I find strange is that so many people say, well as soon as the Palestinians got more land they would not want to kill any longer. When Iran gets a nuclear weapon they would not use it. Looking back at the generation of my genocidal grandfathers I can only support the opposite outlook. It is dead real that the arabs around Israel including Iran would seize the first opportunity to attack Israel. People cannot imagine that, they think intelligent people don't do this. Well unfortunately they do.

The grandfather of a friend of mine was with the SS in Auschwitz. I read the picture postcards from Auschwitz sent home to the family, perfectly normal. This is what mass-murder looks like from the killer's perspective. Perfectly normal, family life included. I can only warn everybody to imagine maniacs when thinking about mass-murder.

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".